DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 261 



mats. In the month of May, he says, the vegetables, which 

 were most numerous round London, were beans, peas, cab- 

 bages of different sorts, leeks, chives, radishes, lettuce (salad), 

 asparagus, and spinach. He writes of Chelsea, " There is scarcely 

 anything else than either orchards or vegetable market gardens, 

 and large fields all planted full of all kinds of small trees for sale." 



Thus it will be seen that great strides had been made in 

 vegetable-culture. In some things, however, gardeners still had 

 very primitive ideas. When, in 1729, an aloe (Agave) flowered 

 in " Mr. Cowell's garden at Hoxton," there was great excitement 

 as to how it should be kept through the winter.* The plant 

 was then twenty feet high, and an erection of wood and 

 glass was built over it, and stoves placed outside with pipes 

 to " convey a due proportion of heat," and it was so arranged 

 that the structure could be heightened, if necessary, to suit 

 the " unexpected growth of this famous plant." They must 

 have been much distressed to find all this care and expense of 

 little use, as not only the flower, but most of the plant itself 

 would soon perish. 



A great many of the vegetables, grown in these market 

 gardens, would be sold in the streets of London. The various 

 cries of the hawkers were a notable feature of London life. One 

 among the many refrains of this perpetual chorus is recalled 

 by Addison,f when he writes : " I am always pleased with 

 that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling 

 of dill and cucumbers, but alas ! this cry, like the song of the 

 nightingale, is not heard above two months." Some of the 

 best-known cries are preserved in an old ballad of early, but 

 uncertain date, from which the following is an extract J : 



" Here's fine rosemary, sage and thyme 

 Come buy my ground ivy. 

 Here fatherfew, gilliflowers and rue 

 Come buy my knotted marjorum ho ! 



* A True Account of the Aloe Americana or Africana now in flower in 

 Mr. Cowell's Garden at Hoxton. . . . The like wherof has never been seen in 

 England before. 1729. 



t Spectator, 251. 



% " Roxburghe Ballads," 1560-1700. History of the Cries of London. 

 Charles Hindley. 2nd ed., 1884. 



